About

Author, Survivor, Ironman, Mom

I was nineteen, heading to Florida with my younger brother, Gary, to visit our Grandmother. It was the first time we were making the trip without our parents. He did the majority of the driving but once in a while he’d get tired enough to give me a turn. Gary didn’t appreciate my driving skills so he always rested with one eye open.

Suddenly, in the middle of rush hour traffic, he turned to me with an annoyed look on his face and said, “Would you please drive!”

“I am driving!” I replied, confused.

“No, you’re not. You’re just steering.”

He was right. I was just steering, looking at scenery, day-dreaming, and barely paying attention. I was in the middle lane of a three-lane highway and cars were passing us on both sides. Maybe I was holding on to the wheel, but I wasn’t driving.

I’ve never forgotten that comment and now recognize that the same thing happens in life. We get distracted by the scenery. It’s hard to concentrate on the road with so many things going on around us. We’re often pulled in conflicting directions by our families, careers, and friends, making it easy to lose sight of what we value most. If we’re not careful, we find ourselves arriving somewhere, wondering how we got there and wishing we were somewhere else. The little detours we take in life aren’t the problem. The problem arises when we allow a detour to become our life.

It’s my goal to place you firmly in the driver’s seat of life with both hands on the wheel, traveling down a road that leads to your “happily ever after.”